Let's go ahead and get this started early then.
Did Jack O'Connor use a guide?
Was Jack O'Connor a trophy hunter or did he hunt for the meat?
Did Jack O'Connor use the best technology of his time?
Did Jack O'Connor ever need more than one shot to put an animal down?
Did Jack O'Connor ever wound an animal that he didn't recover?
Did Jack O'Connor ever shoot at an animal that he could have got closer to, so he could see the look in their eyes when they first saw him?
Did Jack O'Connor ever hunt out of his home State.
Did Jack O'Connor ever disagree over ballistics, caliber, etc, with other hunters?
littlebighorn, as your enjoying those great old articles, cut and paste a few of his exploits where he's engaging in some of the same discussions we are now having, with righteous indignation, as if we are the first born hunters dealing with these age old issues.
Glad you enjoying the old magazines. I've been reading old books through:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24317/24317-h/24317-h.htm
Roosevelt and blacktail deer:
"The ground underfoot was wet and sticky; the rain continued all day long. Once, at a distance, they saw two or three blacktail deer, and a little later they came upon a single buck. They crept to within two hundred yards. Roosevelt fired, and missed. There was every reason why he should miss, for the distance was great and the rain made a clear aim impossible; but it happened that, as the deer bounded away, Joe Ferris fired at a venture, and brought him down. It was a shot in a thousand.
Roosevelt flung his gun on the ground. "By Godfrey!" he exclaimed. "I'd give anything in the world if I could shoot like that!"
Roosevelt and buffalo:
"The horses were slow beasts, and were tired besides and in no condition for running. Roosevelt and his mentor picketed them in a hollow, half a mile from the game, and started off on their hands and knees. Roosevelt blundered into a bed of cactus and filled his hands with the spines; but he came within a hundred and fifty feet or less of the buffalo. He drew up and fired. The bullet made the dust fly from the hide as it hit the body with a loud crack, but apparently did no particular harm. The three buffalo made off over a low rise with their tails in the air.
The hunters returned to their horses in disgust, and for seven or eight miles loped the jaded animals along at a brisk pace. Now and again they saw the quarry far ahead. Finally, when the sun had just set, they saw that all three had come to a stand in a gentle hollow. There was no cover anywhere. They determined, as a last desperate resort, to try to run them on their worn-out ponies.
The bison faced them for an instant, then turned and made off. With spurs and quirt, Roosevelt urged his tired pony forward. Night closed in and the full moon rose out of the black haze on the horizon. The pony plunged to within sixty or seventy yards of the wounded bull, and could gain no more. Joe Ferris, better mounted, forged ahead. The bull, seeing him coming, swerved. Roosevelt cut across and came almost up to him. The ground over which they were running was broken into holes and ditches, and the fagged horses floundered and pitched forward at every step.
At twenty feet, Roosevelt fired, but the pony was pitching like a launch in a storm, and he missed. He dashed in closer.
The bull's tail went up and he wheeled suddenly and charged with lowered horns.
The pony, panic-stricken, spun round and tossed up his head, striking the rifle which Roosevelt was holding in both hands and knocking it violently against his forehead, cutting a deep gash. The blood poured into Roosevelt's eyes.
Ferris reined in his pony. "All right?" he called, evidently frightened.
"Don't mind me!" Roosevelt shouted, without turning an instant from the business in hand. "I'm all right."
For an instant it was a question whether Roosevelt would get the buffalo or the buffalo would get Roosevelt. But he swerved his horse, and the buffalo, plunging past, charged Ferris and followed him as he made off over the broken ground, uncomfortably close to the tired pony's tail. Roosevelt, half-blinded, tried to run in on him again, but his pony stopped, dead beat; and by no spurring could he force him out of a slow trot. Ferris, swerving suddenly and dismounting, fired, but the dim moonlight made accurate aim impossible, and the buffalo, to the utter chagrin of the hunters, lumbered off and vanished into the darkness. Roosevelt followed him for a short space afoot in hopeless and helpless wrath.""
Roosevelt and mountain goat::
It would have been strange if, after this epistolary exchange, the two men should not have been rather curious about each other's personalities. Roosevelt, descending from the train at a way-station in the mountains, found a huge, broad-shouldered man his own age, waiting for him, The man was not over-cordial.(p. 420)
He did not, he later admitted, regard Roosevelt's corduroy knee-pants with favor.
Roosevelt, knowing how to catch a hunter, showed Willis his guns. "Will you go on a trip with me?" he asked.
"I am going to start out day after to-morrow for a three or four weeks' hunt," Willis answered. "If you want to go along as my guest, you are welcome to. But I want to tell you before we go, I won't take any booze."
"Why do you say that?" asked Roosevelt, thoroughly interested in this strange creature.
"Why, I've an idea you are some brewer's son who's made a lot of money. You look as if you'd been raised on beer."
Roosevelt roared with delight. "I want to make a contract with you," he said. "I will give you twenty-five dollars for everything that you show me in the way of game."
"I don't want it," said Willis gruffly.
"Then I will buy the grub."
"All the grub I'll take along won't amount to more than three or four dollars?a hundred pounds of flour, twenty-five pounds of bacon, dried apples, and black tea. That's all you'll get."
"By George," cried Roosevelt, "that's fine!"
"You can't stand a trip like this," Willis remarked with deadly frankness.
"You take me on the trip and I'll show you. I can train myself to walk as far as you can."
Willis doubted it and said so.
(p. 421)
They camped far up in the mountains, hunting day after day through the deep woods just below the timber-line. Roosevelt and Merrifield were accustomed to life in the saddle, and although they had varied it with an occasional long walk after deer or sheep, they were quite unable to cope with Willis when it came to mountaineering. The climbing was hard, the footing was treacherous, and the sharp rocks tore their moccasins into ribbons. There was endless underbrush, thickets of prickly balsam or laurel?but there were no goats.
At last, one mid-afternoon, as he was supporting himself against a tree, halfway across a long landslide, Roosevelt suddenly discovered one of the beasts he was after, a short distance away, making his way down a hill, looking for all the world like a handsome tame billy. He was in a bad position for a shot, and as he twisted himself about he dislodged some pebbles. The goat, instantly alert, fled. Roosevelt fired, but the shot went low, only breaking a fore-leg.
The three men raced and scrambled after the fleeing animal. It leaped along the hillside for nearly a mile, then turned straight up the mountain. They followed the bloody trail where it went up the sharpest and steepest places, skirting the cliffs and precipices.
Roosevelt, intent on the quarry, was not what Bill Sewall would have called "over-cautious" in the pursuit.
He was running along a shelving ledge when a piece of loose slate with which the ledge was covered slipped under his foot. He clutched at the rock wall, he tried to fling himself back, but he could not recover himself.
He went head first over the precipice.
Roosevelt's luck was with him that day. He fell forty or fifty feet into a tall pine, bounced through it, and landed finally, not uncomfortably, in a thick balsam, somewhat shaken and scratched, but with no bones broken and with his rifle still clutched in his hand.
From above came the hoarse voice of John Willis. "Are you hurt?" he asked.
"No," answered Roosevelt, a trifle breathless.
"Then come on!"
Roosevelt "came on," scrambling back up the steep height he had so swiftly descended, and raced after the guide. He came upon the goat at last, but winded as he was, and with the sweat in his eyes, he shot too high, cutting the skin above the spine. The goat plunged downhill and the hunters plunged after him, pursuing the elusive animal until darkness covered the trail.
"Now," said Willis, "I expect you are getting tired."
"By George," said Roosevelt, "how far have we gone?"
"About fifteen or twenty miles up and down the mountains."
"If we get that goat to-morrow, I will give you a hundred dollars."
(p. 423)
"I don't want a hundred dollars. But we'll get the goat."
Roosevelt brought him down the next day at noon.""
The Gutenberg has thousands of old books that I enjoy because the tell the truth about the early days of sport hunting.
http://www.gutenberg.org for those that are interested in those "ways and times".
DC
